EQUIPMENT FITS, TECHNIQUES, INSTRUMENTATION AND FACILITIES
- and in the distance, the sound of big guns being fired:
read on! If you find that the gun shots hurt your ears, scroll down
the page to the applet to switch the motion/sound off. Also,
use your Refresh button to correct any 'slippage' on the applet image.

It would be silly of me to attempt to write
a page about gunnery. Firstly because I am a Communicator and not a Gun-Buster
and secondly the subject is almost exhausted by the many competent authors who
have answered all FAQ about gunnery from the earliest of days to the latest
guided missiles used by present day navies. Therefore, my aim here is to simply
state some facts relating to the boring end of this exciting subject, to show
you how gunnery had progressed after lessons learnt at Jutland and the Falklands
{WW1} had been analysed, and what equipment/facility was incorporated in our warships
in the endeavour to keep our fighting capability well ahead of all other
navies; whether that was achieved is for the 'professionals' to argue
about, however, with a little help from the RAF [and the Germans themselves] it
was the Royal Navy who cleared the seas of German surface units. I have many
heroes, but one in particular for me is the DESTROYER
OF THE BISMARCK who in Nelson-fashion signalled to units in
company from his Flagship HMS King George V, "CLOSE THE RANGE. GET
CLOSER...GET CLOSER...I CAN'T SEE ENOUGH HITS". Despite a 'slow' start, our
great Admiral Sir John Tovey {known as Splashguts} [later Admiral of the Fleet
Lord Tovey] did what all the world desired and what every British person DEMANDED;
he sank the Bismarck, good and dead. This is Admiral Tovey in an informal
appearance
and this is Admiral Tovey. the boss, on his Flagship KG V . I managed to find his obituary
which had been printed in all the national's. However here is the one from
the Daily Telegraph. He died in 1971.
This picture shows him as an Admiral of the Fleet taken at some point
between 1943 and his retirement in 1946

There is no bias towards any one weapon or
armament, and 'bring all guns to bear' is the overall theme. However, I do
find big guns more interesting than little guns or torpedoes [fired from ships]
although the Scharnhorst and to a lesser degree the Bismarck might swallow at
that [!], butfew can deny that a ship or group of
ships protecting themselves against air attack by throwing pom pom or 4-inch
high angle [HA] gun projectiles skywards, is to say the very least, exciting,
and usually, my preferred big low angle [LA] guns, are resting motionless whilst
all around the ship their little friends are working flat out to see off the
airborne enemy. Thus, each group HA and LA have their own very important part to
play in destroying the enemy.

Returning to those big guns, the Royal Navy
employed three different calibre namely 16-inch, 15-inch and 14-inch with a
mixture of 8-inch and 6-inch [still big guns especially by today's standards].
The 'smaller' guns were the 5.5-inch, 5.25-inch, 4.7-inch, 4.5-inch, 4-inch and
the 2 pounder pom pom. There were many various combinations, but in simplistic
terms, it can be said that the big guns were the main armament of battleships
and battlecruisers, the middle range [8 and 6-inch] the main armament of
cruisers and the destroyers, frigates, sloops, escorts had the smaller calibre
guns as their main armament. All classes of ship had the smaller calibre guns as
AA [anti aircraft] [HA] secondary armaments, complimented of course by the
proverbial pom pom, although in smaller vessels, of necessity, their one or two main armament
guns functioned as both HA and LA attacking guns.

To assist you with the deployment of the big
guns, the following table shows who had what.

Apart from the Tirpitz and the Bismarck, compared with
the British, small calibre main armament suited for destroying merchant
ships [surface raiders] but not fighting our battleships and
battlecruisers, and invariably, the 11-inch ships would stay well clear of
our big guns unless cornered.

The story would not be complete without briefly
mentioning the maximum calibre guns of the USN, the Italian Navy and the IJN
which were respectively either 14-inch or 16-inch guns with one older
battleships having 12-inch guns: the Italians favoured 15-inch guns in their battleships and the
Japanese got to as high as 18.1-inch guns in their two 72,000 ton
battleships the Yamato and the Musashi, each having 9 guns in 3 turrets, the
total weight of the turrets was 2,500 tons the weight of a decent sized WW2
destroyer. However,
such a "brief" visit would not do justice to another lady, which
our chief ally and good friends {outside that most revered bunch of
Commonwealth navies} the Americans, but specifically the United States Navy
[USN] call the MIGHTY 'W', as we called/call our largest warship HMS Hood,
the MIGHTY HOOD. The MIGHTY 'W' refers to the USN battleship the USS
WASHINGTON {BB56}. The USN knows a few things about BIG GUNS and
certainly the MIGHTY 'W' packed one hell of a punch. This marvellous applet
comes from the President of the USS WASHINGTON BB56 Associate Unit, Inc.,
one Howard Wright. I am very grateful to Howard for allowing me to use his
work.

{Note that the SOUND file has a finite
number of repeats and then turns off. To hear the sounds again, reload the
page}

In the following pictures, the first two
are the top and bottom parts of one table, and pictures three and four of a
second table. They show the Great Britain Armoured Ships details and
parameters for 1924. TopBottom. However, in the following year
they [the publishers] had altered the first column [the Ships Name] by
adding a date for scrapping the vessel. Bearing in mind this is 1925, look
at the scrapping date for HMS HOOD. Isn't that strange and weird? Top
{REMEMBER
That there were two KG V's, WW1 and WW2}Bottom . These
were the navy estimates for 1919-1920 at the time when the Hood was about to
start her life as the Mighty Hood.

Now, what is gunnery all about and what makes a gun an
accurate killing machine or just a noisy old length of pipe? The following file
will give you all the answers to that question with 'modern' history thrown in.
It is in three parts for ease of reading and download speed. The information
here is taken from CB's and BR's [ so it is proper Navy coming out of the
Admiralty], in issue at the very beginning of WW2 {1939} up to and
including the near end of the war in early 1945, and addresses the problem of
low angled [LA] or surface gunnery - shooting at another ship or a target on the
mainland. High angled gunnery [HA] or shooting at aircraft is published later
on. USE THE PDF BOOKMARKS TO HELP YOU NAVIGATE.

After that most interesting and informative read, comes the
actual lists of who got what, when, and why. The next file comes in four parts,
and for the true devotees, there is a great deal of detail to take in. The first
table above will help you here, for when it mentions, say, the
"Nelson" class, you will know to which ship's the article refers. What
you see and read here is the state of fit when the 'fighting war' was nearly one
year old i.e. in August 1940 [the war proper lasted for over eleven years and
all hostilities were considered to be over and full peace was declared with
Germany by all the Allied Forces at 4pm on the 10th July 1951]. Directors Various Part I.pdfDirectors Various Part II.pdfDirectors Various Part III.pdfDirectors Various Part IV.pdf

The story, and fate of HMS HOOD polarises our minds to big
guns and the damage they can inflict, albeit, a 'lucky shot' into an elderly and
not best protected [armour] battlecruiser. Her assailant was herself rendered
defenceless by gun fire from the Rodney and the King George V before she was
finally slaughtered by torpedoes from the Dorsetshire*.
Therefore, I will pick out any points of interest in the CB's and BR's which
apply to Hood either collectively as "capital ships" or as "battlecruisers"
or by her name alone.

* THIS SNIPPET
comes from my web page The Royal Navy Warrant Officer Part III and refers to the
captain of the Dorsetshire. Also in 1910, Lieutenant
N.F. Usborne
had drafted a paper about promotion where young leading seamen and petty
officers be promoted acting warrant officers, undertake courses with
sub-lieutenants and later be promoted to lieutenants. Churchill urged Fisher to
consider the matter, and in 1912 Churchill announced to the House and to the
navy, his scheme. It was accepted on both sides of the House and
immediately put into practice. This initiative emerged as the MATES SCHEME, by
which selected warrant officers and qualified petty officers were given a round
of specialist courses, with subsequent promotion to the wardroom as mates before
becoming lieutenants. The problems was that to be eligible one had to be below
the age of 30, and that ruffled feathers amongst the 'old and bold' warrant
officers, the very men who had been complaining for years. Still, the
scheme went ahead, but it was not an unqualified success as you can imagine.
Whatever ones view, it was a break through, and by 1914 some forty four mates
had started to 'climb the ladder' and no fewer than two hundred young warrant
officers had been promoted to chief warrant officer after fifteen years
service. Internally things were looking up at long last, but externally, the
war clouds were about to burst. The outbreak of war did wonders for the
Mates. Thirty five were at sea and a further twenty six finishing course ashore,
including the very first engineer Mate [E]. As planned, in 1913 the first mates
were promoted to lieutenant and from then on the demand for officers was so
great that over one hundred per year qualified, and three became flag
officers.

It might seem to you a long time ago since
you started this page, and that the first interactive thing you did was to click
on a 'click here' prompt. On that new page which showed warrant officers stripes
in the middle of the page and wardroom officers stripes to the right of the
page, I mentioned the captain of HMS Dorsetshire and that he was a 'ranker'. Do
you remember? Dorsetshire torpedoed the Bismarck on the port side and then
on the starboard side from close range. Captain Benjamin C.S. Martin was one of
the mates I have described above. A bright young petty officer who became an
acting warrant officer [a gunner] 28th May 1915 - a mate [sub lieutenant stripe]
13th October 1916 - a lieutenant 13th May 1919 - a lieutenant commander 13th
October 1926 - a commander 30th June 1935 and a captain 31st July 1939. Benjamin
Martin achieved Flag Rank and eventually the KBE. Later, on the 5th April 1942,
then under Captain A.W.S. Agar VC RN., the Dorsetshire was lost to Japanese aircraft off Ceylon with the loss of over two
hundred souls: the Captain was wounded in action [WIA].

The gunnery control system for the Hood is described on the
Hood website http://www.hmshood.com/ which
is a well presented, almost academic presentation. What it does as much as
anything is to remind us the Hood was a one-off in just about every sense, not
least her gunnery control and fire system but the very type of guns [main
armament] she had were unique, and remember that lots of ship's also had 15-inch
guns. However, the finding in these CB's and BR's reveal 'small' differences to
what appears on the Hood website and it is possible that we are talking about
the same facility but expressed under a different heading, the ones here from
August 1940 and the ones on the Hood site possibly from an earlier period.

In the Directors Various file [in four parts] above, you
will see on pages 1-11, appendix 1, that ships older than the Hood are regularly
mentioned [Renown, Valiant and Queen Elizabeth for example] as are ships younger
than Hood [Nelson and Rodney] but not the Hood herself, until it comes to the
bottom of page 4. There it mentions Directors for pom-pom guns MK 'M', saying
that the Hood got one in the first batch issued namely the Mk 1*. Hood had three
pom pom mountings, and page 5 completes the story giving Hood a further two
Directors, a Mk 1**and a Mk 2 which was fitted with C.O.F.A.S. [Control Officers
Forward Area Sight]. At this time period [August 1940] just about the
whole of the "big ship fleet" is now fitted with pom pom Directors, and Hood
has one for each mounting.

Continuing with HA Directors and still on page 5, we see
that Hood is fitted with a very modern HACS [High Angle Control System] Mk III*
[note the Star] again across-the-board big ship fit, with the AA cruisers and escort vessels also
fitted. This will almost certainly be the main Director for the 4-inch Mk XVI HA
double barrel guns for Hood and other big ships, and a HA/LA for smaller ships,
this despite its name of HACS. [See the HACS handbook file below]. The HACS III* came
with a very sophisticated calculating table [pictures later] and the
configuration between the HACS III* and the AFCC Mk VIII became known as the
HACS IIIc Table.

Notwithstanding Hoods uniqueness mentioned above, she is by
this time being 'dragged' into the modern world.

Pages 7 and 8, by virtue of Hood having HACS III* fitted,
shows the ship with one or two telescope enhancements to her Directors, whilst
page 10 includes an enhancement to her Gyro Oil Unit.

So much for Directors. Now to Elevation Receivers. The Type
'C' [or variant] would have been fitted in Hood [pages 12 and 13] but I am not
sure which one, possibly a Mk II, Mk III, Mk IV, Mk V, type CM Mk I, CM Mk I*.
Later, you will see a picture of the Type CM.

Moving on to Training Receivers. There is a picture showing
a type C Training Receiver. Once again, either a Type C
or a Type CM could have been fitted in Hood.

THE FIRE CONTROL BOX MARKS IV AND IV* -
JUNE 1940.

The Fire Control Boxes, Mk IV and IV* are
designed as the LOCAL CONTROL arrangements for CAPITAL SHIPS' MAIN
ARMAMENT. The Mk IV* box is fitted in the CONTROLLING TURRET
and differs from the Mk IV in that it contains convergence mechanism for the AFTER
TURRET and the necessary elevation and training to OTHER TURRETS.
In order to obtain the desired accuracy in the gun training transmission in the
Mk IV* box, the gear ratio in this drive is different from that in the Mk IV
box. All capital ships built after the Hood [Nelson Class, KG V Class, Vanguard]
had the AFCT [Admiralty Fire Control Table] for controlling LA main armament
guns incorporating the AFCC
Mk VIII - Admiralty Fire
Control Clock], whilst the Hood had a Dryer Table which in reality incorporated post-Jutland
technology and lesson learning techniques. It is also highly probable that the
FC systems in the Revenge Class, the Renown Class and the Queen Elizabeth class
all more or less pre-Jutland thinking, had been taken out and replaced by the
AFCT/AFCC. Whilst the FCB Mk IV* [designed for the KG V] shows three
turret only AB and Y it surely cannot have been difficult to add X turret
wiring/controls for 15-inch guns, Hood, for example, so that her guns could be
used in LOCAL CONTROL: - see the Hood website and particularly read their
article about TURRET TABLES, in this case, mini-Dryer Mk V tables. Were this to
have happened, Hood would have had FOUR systems viz the elderly Dryer Table for
LA main armament central control firing, the FCB Mk IV* for main armament firing
locally controlled, the HACS Mk III* system for HA firing or LA firing
with the quick firing [QF] 4-inch twin barrel guns and the Directors for her pom
poms.

This FCB was fitted into ships having 14-inch
guns, namely the King George V class [see above in top table], and it was she,
the KG V, who along with the Rodney [16-inch guns], crippled the Bismarck
[nominally 15-inch guns - see above in second table]. Therefore, it is worth a
brief look at one of the KG V's main armament controlling systems.

First, here is a picture of what the table
looked like FIRE CONTROL BOX MK IV*FOR CAPITAL SHIPS. [FCB ONE.JPG].
HERE IS A TYPICAL CONFIGURATION FOR A NON-CAPITAL SHIP
WITH THE FIRE CONTROL BOX MK II FITTED [FCB ONE
ALFA.JPG].

Next the FCB proper. The plates referred to are much too
large for the internet some nearly double A3 size. I have published two JPG
Pictures [in
addition to text and drawings integral thereto], one to show the FCB Wind
Deflection Calculator and the other to show the FCB Layer's and Trainer's
Sights.

Remember to use the BOOKMARKS within the PDF
files for easier navigation.

The following pictures of the HACS Mk III Table are thumbnails. Click on them
to enlarge. . Each
Table had its own Director, or put another way, each Director had its own Table.
The following pictures show the general arrangements of the HA and HA/LA Mk III*
Directors as fitted in the Hood for example. The following three pictures,
when printed and joined together form a picture showing the 'SIDE' and 'REAR'
views of the Director [left and right respectively] [LEFT
HAND PAGE], [MIDDLE
PAGE] , [RIGHT
HAND PAGE] . The
next three pages, printed and joined, form a picture of the 'PLAN' of the
Director. [LEFT HAND PAGE] , [MIDDLE PAGE] , [RIGHT HAND PAGE] . The operation of the HACS III* and IIIc System
is explained in the following two files HACS III AND IIIC PART ONE.pdf
and HACS III AND IIIc PART TWO.pdf
both with generous amounts of internal bookmarks.

Well doing this type of page has been a departure for me,
but as you may have noticed, I like to do as many naval subjects as possible. I
hope that it gives you some insight into the gunnery of WW2 at sea, and for the
purists amongst you, the true gun-busters, I hope that it brings back memories.

Please prolong your visit to the HMS HOOD website which
most of us revere as a National Naval Shrine.